It would help to colonize the base rock if you put the live rock together with the base in the sump - but... (Some animals in the rock do not have a free swimming larval stage and the sump won't get colonized with those animals unless the contact is direct.) There is some benefit to not having all those creatures in the sump because the sump will naturally colonize with many tiny filter feeding worms, tunicates and sponges. If you use base rock, there will be many places for those animals to grow and you can selectively add animals to the sump that you want there in a year or so if you think you need something else. So, thats the long way of saying I would keep the nicer looking live rock in the main tank. I used some rubble at the base, against the back of my main tank this time. Tons of stuff makes its home in the rubble and I seem to have some tiger striped brittle stars breeding in there and have gotten all kinds of life from it. There is more than one method that works and my opinion here is simply that. Other ways also work fantastically well as you can see in the tanks where we have our monthly meetings.
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